


Shadow prince

by Slant



Series: Other princes [2]
Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Art, Existentialism, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:19:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2389703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Extra! Extra! You can create the meaning of your own life with an effort of the will!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Robot: Beep-boop. I am a ro-bot.  
Robot: I grab the mon-key.  
Robot: I am a good ro-bot. I grab many mon-keys.  
Robot: The mon-keys die. I feel emp-ty.  
Robot: No-thing is e-ter-nal. Beep-boop.

A-ko slid her draft over to her friend.  
"It's the worst thing I've ever written. And the truest."  
"Is there something you want to talk about?"  
"Beep-boop. The emp-ty-ness in-side does not re-cede with de-tai-led a-nal-y-sis."  
"Here's what I think. I think that looking an eternal meaning will fail, but its not because there is nothing that can be good, it's that meaning can only be for people and it must come from people. I think that art is important, and because of that, art is important. Maybe it's just some fluke of how I'm set up, that I like creating something new, putting together words and actions in a way that no ones done before and telling a story that can be read in a dozen different ways, depending on interpretation and what the audience thinks of the impenetrable similes. Maybe that doesn't mean anything to anyone else, but it is enough for me."  
B-ko stopped suddenly and blushed. She didn't often talk directly, or about her feelings, or to people at all, preferring to communicate by carefully-constructed allusions from behind a screen. Even with A-ko, she mostly talked about what was artistically necessary, rather than about the necessity of art.  
Ak-o reached across the table and touched her hand. Finger tip to finger tip, palm to palm.  
"Thank you clever monkey." A-ko had stopped doing the voice.  
"I... I'm glad I'm someone that you can talk to about those things"  
They looked at each other. C-ko, who had learnt shorthand ("Less time writing notes equals more time rehearsing,") slid B-ko's speech onto the desk between them, making them both jump and blush.  
"I think that you've got Monkey's dialogue basically down. Polish it up and perform it."  
If C-ko had any humanity left behind the need to write and perform, neither of them had ever seen it. It was impossible to be embarrassed- if they had been C-ko would have watched with hawkish intensity, perfected emoting "embarrassed", and then paid no further attention to the incident.


	2. C-ko alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, it was artistically necessary to expand that one sentence at the end of the first chapter to something as long as the original story.

"In five days I will ask something of you. Until then I practice austerities."

C-ko sat in seiza outside the temple. This wasn't for the benefit of the monks inside. Her need to show commitment to the role—any role—was the blazing fire around which the rest of her life turned. 

A few weeks ago, she had seen B-ko blushing after A-ko said something. What was said did not signify- C-ko was confident she could have delivered the line with more passion, or more trembling vulnerability. What signified was the blush. It was an exquisite wordless display of deep emotional turmoil. What if a role required her to blush? She had questioned B-ko closely regarding it, and after a certain amount of additional blushing—displaying a much less interesting trifling embarrassment— had found that it was sub-concious. The automatic nervous system was an old foe, standing between C-ko and effective emoting on a number of occasions. What was worse, it had added inauthentic touches like pulse, body heat and breathing to all of her death scenes. She would have to master it. 

The first temple she had visited had been only marginally helpful. If she ever needed to play a elderly monk who thought that acting was frivolous there were a number of faithful touches that she had noted and added to her repertoire, but not much more. She had however, almost completely rewritten her current role ("aspirant seeking to master herself [to improve her acting]"), to give her improv partners* more to work with. Hence the current display of devotion. 

 

* C-Ko had a lot of improv partners. Many of them thought that they were "having a conversation" with her. She thought of them as "people who do not understand their own actor-nature". It was very sad.


End file.
